THAT'S EVEN BEFORE AG HARRIS GETS INVOLVED:

[N]ew York has a real chance at putting Trump behind bars. The state has jurisdiction over most of his properties and operations relating to his 2016 presidential campaign. Crucially, states also are not subject the U.S. Department of Justice's rule that a sitting president may not be prosecuted for federal crimes. Trump, therefore, is stripped of his four-year kryptonite shield if he is re-elected. A state indictment of a sitting president, though historically unprecedented, is entirely possible. His DOJ-Roy Cohn, Bill Barr, is constitutionally powerless to intervene.

That should make Trump uneasy, especially as New York Attorney General Letitia James ramps up her own investigations. "We will use every area of the law to investigate President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family," she declared after taking office two years ago.

At the same time, Vance's subpoena appears to go beyond obtaining financial records relating to alleged pre-election hush money payments to silence two women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. Both of the women claim to have had affairs with Trump. Information gleaned from the DA's inquiry could expose tax cheating and money laundering as well as bank and insurance fraud, both of which are felonies.

Johnston told me he's confident that Vance already has Trump's New York tax filings. Even though the IRS and state tax authorities share tax information on citizens and business entities, it's unclear whether he also has the president's federal returns. The DA is seeking Trump's financial records from his accounting firm Mazars USA in addition to Deutsche Bank--to compare that data with what he already possesses, looking for corroborating information, according to Johnston.

"Trump has a well-documented history as a tax cheat and for hiding business records," Johnston said. "This is garden variety tax fraud, a straight-up tax scam that could easily be a felony."

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